IronTiger

I know where the Randalls distribution center is, I pass it by every time I go to Houston. But there's something else I've noticed, too. On the last past several trips, I've noticed that Randalls trucks are going up Highway 6 north of Hempstead, which is unusual since the other Randalls/Tom Thumbs are in Dallas-Fort Worth or Austin (that's it), so the most logical decision would be I-45 or US-290. I eventually came to the conclusion that the Randalls trucks are going to Dallas-Fort Worth, since it would be easier to get out that way, going up TX-6 to Waco and I-35, rather than work their way up to I-45 through Houston. That seemed logical, and I didn't let it bother me anymore. But today, while waiting at a light just a few miles away from my house, I noticed a Randalls truck going north on Harvey Mitchell Parkway, the not-quite-limited-access road that goes around town. This made it even more confusing, if it was going to 21 to Austin, that's also a pretty rough journey, with some older, curvy roads, lots of lights, a few hard turns (even at FM 60 and FM 2818) and so forth. What the heck is going on? Is there some reason why they're taking seemingly the worse routes possible?

Sometime in the fall (link) I know the structure looks to be built, but these things take a pretty long time to open. I'm expecting to be out of college by the time Saltgrass opens in College Station (the slab is poured the last time I heard, and I at least hope I can catch Torchy's before I go away)

A giant fountain?

Well, if I recall correctly, the METRO plan was to get it to the park and rides too, which for a transit system is a pretty logical terminus. But I'm guessing (although I think I could get to it via Google or my Houston library account, I'm too lazy) that it's less exalting their rail system and more "another chance to bash Bob Lanier/Tom DeLay/John Culberson".

Somebody questioned if the parking garage would still be safe for use afterward, since at certain temperatures even reinforced concrete would be compromised (and those apartments were an inferno). I even wondered if since the Axis website is still down if the developers took the insurance money and took off. Anyone know for sure?

That's what I thought, until this 19 number came up, and the fact that they're hitting Austin and New Braunfels (New Braunfels, really?) before Houston. Once Austin is "secured", so to speak, I think they'll move to Houston. It makes more sense to plant a market and make sure its healthy than randomly scattering your businesses everywhere (which is what fast-growing companies tend to do--both McDonald's and Kmart did this, but while that strategy worked well for one, one of them botched it and sent them into a permanent tailspin, guess which one is which?)

The Inner Loop has lots of relatively large parks, something that can't be said for other "urban" areas: Discovery Green, Memorial Park, Hermann Park, MacGregor Park, and even some parks that are a few blocks wide like the Greater Fifth Ward like Tuffy Park. All New York has is Central Park and a few tiny blocks of greenspace (always crowded and rarely more than a few trees, a basketball court, a playground, and benches) to constitute for "parks", and yet somehow those things are seen as "better" because they're in "walking distance". The other thing is that even the large, less-well-kept apartment complexes have pools, such as the large ones in Gulfton, which have courtyards with pools. In cities in NYC or S.F., if you lived in an apartment, there isn't a way you'd have a courtyard with a pool unless you lived in a fancy building. And yet although these are like "private parks", they aren't covered.

...didn't the thread title have it as 1100 Main, which was the old Foley's/Macy's address? When did that change?

Apparently, the hotel was in a bad location, far away from other downtown amenities at the time ("not near anything") and the hotel started to have a hard time filling rooms, with by the time the hotel was sold to the guru, Days Inn (and likely Holiday Inn before it) had closed off half of its rooms "because it was not economically feasible to operate them", which were never reopened. Otherwise, it was a fairly bland suburban early 1970s Holiday Inn hotel just made much bigger.

Yeah, Rock Prairie and Wellborn.

Exactly, I was commenting on how Detroit is tied for 13 in the first list with Houston at 30 in terms of "walkable park access". As for converting condemned neighborhoods (for floods, not Superfund sites), the Brownwood subdivision of Baytown, the mother of "neighborhoods condemned due to flooding" is now a nature park. The new parks converted from neighborhoods could use their names. The problem is that Harris County Flood Control still owns the lots, so it would need to be transferred to another government entity to be converted to parkland. I bet there are other places that could be converted to parkland in a pinch, but I'm wary of these lists because they don't take into account quality or ease of use.

I know Four Seasons by Sheraton did a rather extensive remodel on a local Holiday Inn, but not necessarily "gutting down to a shell". It honestly looks like it's prepping for demolition or at least a completely different format (residences or offices, though both seem unlikely). To note: 806 Main was totally gutted in the Marriott remodel, and it was less about restoring the facade (or at least putting up a cheap facade that resembled the original) then changing it from a rather dated office tower to a plush modern hotel. Since HoliDays on Earth Inn already had standard hotel rooms to begin with, gutting it to an empty shell seems rather unusual if it was going to be converted to a hotel again, especially a moderate-priced one like Fairfield Inn.

HCAD was generally unhelpful, counts the entire building as one with one address (500 N. Sam Houston Pkwy. E., Baymont on the newer side has 502) with one build date (1979, unknown if that's the build date of the second hotel or the first), and no leads on the hotel ownership changes. Undoubtedly, the twin hotels flew under different flags, and frankly, I'm not sure if the skywalk is even still open to walk from one hotel to the other. Anyone have any other ideas?

Sort of like in that scene from Die Hard before Hans Gruber and his team burst in? Wow.

Well, not counting the "improving the Houston zoo" thread, I think that there are better ways to create park space pretty cheaply without depressing freeways, as that would be horrifically expensive. What I think should be done is that since Houston has cleared out hundreds of homes near the bayous (whole subdivisions or parts of subdivisions), instead of spooky closed off areas, those areas become official parks that could survive an occasional floods. Take, for instance, the old subdivision at Saunders and Eastex Freeway. That could become a large regional park. And of course, every few subdivisions could have a small pocket park with some green space and a basketball court. The "park space" graph is misleading, Detroit parks are piss-poor maintained for instance, and more $$$ spent on parks ≠ better parks.

19?! I thought there were 3-4, and the reason they didn't come to Houston was that (probably) the Dallas ones were underperforming.

Topic says it all: this is the thread to put what restaurants and stores (chains) you'd like to see in Houston. This isn't necessarily WHERE (of course, you'd like to see it closer to your neighborhood) or how MANY, but just what do "they" have that we don't. While you could count things that have left the area before and come back (like Del Taco), I'd just like to have a few "guidelines": 1) It must be chains that are growing, not shrinking. I think a Kmart in Houston would be cool, but unless they pull a 360 on that business, it's not happening. 2) It must be chains that franchise or otherwise don't have a set limit on how they expand. Braums has a 300 mile radius limit (Hillsboro is as far south as it gets), and asking for supermarket that doesn't have a location for miles around as they expand out from a home base (chains such as Publix, Meijer, or Wegmans--besides, do you think Wegmans is competitive enough for Houston?) 3) It must be something that isn't in the market area at all. So no "There's an [X] in The Woodlands or Galveston", it must entirely new to the market. That still of course leaves a ton of room as to what to see: In N Out Burger is the first thing that comes to my mind, but I wanted to know your thoughts.

Not a big fan of Tumblr, rather see them appear on HAIF (at least HAIF, both concurrently would be fine too). The only problem is watermarking them, Sev and I have seen our scans and photos of historic content reappear on other sources without citations.

I pronounce it as "hife".

Probably for the workers as the elevators with all the floors on it aren't installed yet?

To clarify: pictures of the inside.

That's a good "tl;dr" version. That's basically it.

The 2003 referendum was extensive but ambitious. It did promise the new lines plus $640 million in bonds to finance them, but also a range of other goals like vastly expanded bus service. But while that is all fine and good, METRO way undershot construction costs (a reason why I doubt METRO's numbers). $467 million of that bond was spent on the North Line extension, the remainder for the Southeast Line to U of H. So where does Culberson come in? He says that METRO spent $1 billion from 2003 to 2012 with little to show for it. "Yeah, because of Afton Oaks!" you say, but also that East End overpass and even a spat with U of H. But even with that, that's a large number. So is he right? Well, most of us would say no, but he does have a point...and he certainly doesn't actually break the 2003 referendum. So, what do we do? You either wait it out (years) or gut METRO like a fish and replace it with new people.

Two long 'o's would be correct (that's an o with a bar over it, or ō), so that it would be "Sew-Hoe". Interestingly, in a way, the New York!pronunciation of the word almost makes more sense than the real way Houston is pronounced (hew-ston). I have a feeling that no matter how EaDo is pronounced or supposed to be pronounced doesn't matter, because everyone will still cringe at it.

Problem is, removing freeways really is an unknown and needs more studying to make sure it could be done carefully. There aren't very many highway removal projects, ever: a few of them (Milwaukee, Portland) involved removing an older pre-Interstate road when it redundant (yet are often touted as "freeway removal"), Boston relocated theirs entirely underground (which didn't actually "remove" a freeway, actually replacing an old 1940s viaduct with a new one), San Francisco's freeways were only spurs to begin with and structurally compromised, and Seoul's freeway we really don't know a whole lot about the traffic patterns (Google Earth suggests that the surface streets were always more popular) or its structural integrity (it was built over a river, after all). Assuming that something is the case based on a few rare examples of an already-rare event is just a rather shaky assumption. The only way to really "prove" something is if we start closing off a lot of freeways to measure any economic effects, and even if "hey, freeways are worth something", we would have destroyed economies in the process.